The Page 1 editorial, headlined "NOAA's hollow actions only show need for criminal probe," was the first we had presented in more than two years, and one of the very few Page 1 editorials presenting in the Times in at least the last decade. And printing it on the front page was certainly not taken lightly.
But, speaking the night before with our publisher, Al Getler, and with other editors, all agreed that the subject matter — a supposed "apology" on Tuesday, but otherwise a maddening lack of accountability on the part of leaders of the U.S. Commerce Department and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — was indeed worthy of Page 1 editorial attention.
Now, we had already planned our Thursday lead news story around the new 226-page investigative report on NOAA enforcement wrongdoing. So you might wonder, why wouldn't we simply run the news story on Page 1, and keep the editorial in its usual position? Why would your community's newspaper do that?
Because, in this case, we felt that our own outrage — as a newspaper, as an institution within this community, and indeed as a part of this community — was a message we felt the need to convey to our government leaders and our own readers in a very special way.
Yes, we could have held the editorial — which, beyond the outrage, urged our federal lawmakers to commission an independent investigation of this whole sordid affair to hold the perpetrators of these crimes accountable — to this Opinion page. In that sense, it would have echoed the call for criminal prosecution we had essentially urged in the past.
Read the complete opinion piece from The Gloucester Times.